Yield v. t. [imp. & p. p. Yielded; obs. p. p. Yold p. pr. & vb. n. Yielding.]
1. To give in return for labor expended; to produce, as payment or interest on what is expended or invested; to pay; as, money at interest yields six or seven per cent.
To yelde Jesu Christ his proper rent. --Chaucer.
When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. --Gen. iv. 12.
2. To furnish; to afford; to render; to give forth. “Vines yield nectar.”
[He] makes milch kine yield blood. --Shak.
The wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children. --Job xxiv. 5.
3. To give up, as something that is claimed or demanded; to make over to one who has a claim or right; to resign; to surrender; to relinquish; as a city, an opinion, etc.
And, force perforce, I'll make him yield the crown. --Shak.
Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame. --Milton.
4. To admit to be true; to concede; to allow.
I yield it just, said Adam, and submit. --Milton.
5. To permit; to grant; as, to yield passage.
6. To give a reward to; to bless. [Obs.]
Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,
And the gods yield you for 't. --Shak.
God yield thee, and God thank ye. --Beau. & Fl.
To yield the breath, To yield the breath up, To yield the ghost, To yield the ghost up, To yield up the ghost, or To yield the life, to die; to expire; -- similar to To give up the ghost.
One calmly yields his willing breath. --Keble.
Ghost n.
1. The spirit; the soul of man. [Obs.]
Then gives her grieved ghost thus to lament. --Spenser.
2. The disembodied soul; the soul or spirit of a deceased person; a spirit appearing after death; an apparition; a specter.
The mighty ghosts of our great Harrys rose. --Shak.
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost. --Coleridge.
3. Any faint shadowy semblance; an unsubstantial image; a phantom; a glimmering; as, not a ghost of a chance; the ghost of an idea.
Each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. --Poe.
4. A false image formed in a telescope by reflection from the surfaces of one or more lenses.
Ghost moth Zool., a large European moth (Hepialus humuli); so called from the white color of the male, and the peculiar hovering flight; -- called also great swift.
Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit; the Paraclete; the Comforter; Theol. the third person in the Trinity.
To give up the ghost or To yield up the ghost, to die; to expire.
And he gave up the ghost full softly. --Chaucer.
Jacob . . . yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. --Gen. xlix. 33.